Houses of Study: A Jewish Woman among Books

Tree, Light, Fruit

Tree, Light, Fruit 149 Ann Arbor, 2005 W e’re into new books now, books of a di√erent sort. All have pictures. Some are made of paper, others of cloth and plastic and cardboard. Books for eating as well as reading. When I go into the bookstore now—Afterwords, on Main Street—I head for the back room, where it’s all pleasure. There’s a rug on the floor and three tall bookcases, two blue tables, a few turning racks. ‘‘Children,’’ the sign above the door says, and that is true, but the sign should say ‘‘Parents’’ as well. When you go to the area actually marked ‘‘Parents,’’ you find books on breast feeding, how to deal with the unruly child, how to manage sibling rivalry, feng shui and yoga for your baby. I skip the adult books for the room with all the surprises, the ideas and things you want to see, hear, touch, taste, smell, fall asleep remembering. No one questions the right of the mother to choose books for her chid. Perhaps no one thinks of it. Such a quiet thing, private even when it’s public, of minimal consequence when compared to other matters. No one watches, and you build a little world. In a few months we will start going to the library. By then Priya will walk steadily among bookcases; she will know how to balance herself, to stand and hold things at the same time; she will learn to look forward to story hour among the bean bags and puppets. Then we will borrow books for a week at a time, sit on the cushions at the library and browse books together , share books with other children and parents, get a library card. For now, though, our library is at home. 150 t r e e , l i g h t , f r u i t I buy books with an abandon I have only in the sphere of books. I hold o√ on clothing and toys and decorations, which others, too, love to buy and make. When Priya was born, she received an abundance of tiny, lovely girl clothes in soft pink and deep teal, vivid purple, pristine white, tender yellow. Hats, dresses, one-piece suits, blankets, the softest materials imaginable . I loved to handle these things, even to launder them and then lay them on the plastic rack, avoiding the dryer for fear they would shrink to be even smaller than they started out. Those clothes now look tiny next to her growing body. Now, a year later, her clothes are mostly beautiful hand-me-downs from her cousins, my brother’s girls, Jessica and Emily. Her many toys—musical instruments, sorting bins, blocks, animals , dolls, puzzles, rattles—have all come as gifts. The decorations in her room—hot air ballooons hanging from the ceiling , papier-mâché globes with tiny baskets and strings, clouds of pu√y cotton, one globe designed with her initials, another with the Mona Lisa, another half-moon and stars on one side and sun and sky on the other—these were her father’s project and gift. That leaves for me . . . diapers and books. . . . . . . . . . . . . I think I never wanted to dwell too much on the prospect of buying books for a child of my own because the doubt as to whether it would ever come to pass—the finding of a mate, the great blessing of conception, healthy pregnancy, successful delivery—all seemed so much to hope for, just as much to be deprived of. Now that Priya is nearly one, I can testify that of all the joys of being her mother, one of the greatest is looking at her, listening to her, and then finding the right books. . . . . . . . . . . . . I was pregnant for thirty-eight weeks with an unknown, unknowable being. I didn’t want to know its sex, and Ori let me decide since he was not sure whether he wanted to know. The ultrasound at twenty weeks upset me. Too technical, too much information. It was fine for me that the doctor know; that was t r e e , l i g h t , f r u i t 151 her business. It was right to check to see whether the developing being was healthy and well. But I did not want to see on the outside—on a screen, no less—what was inside me and secret...